DOCUMENT RESUME ED 082 147 INSTITUTION PUB DATE 1

bank for planning, installing, and managing objectives-based reading programs to meetthe needs of local students. The manual explains the background and contents of thebank and suggests procedures for its use in the three major aspects of a reading program- -curriculum, instruction, and evaluation.In this first chapter, we will present the rationale for a Bank of Objectives, Items,eading objectives, the portion of the Readingand Rsoun.:es (BOIR); tell how the bank.::,BOIR which has been comple,ed, came into being; and describe the levels system usedfor the bankSucceeC::ng anapters will describe the reading objectives in detail andwill disct.:::s the processes involved in establishing a local curriculum, organizinginstruction, designing and selecting appropriate instructional materials, and usingevaluation for the management of instruction.The Rationale for SPPED BanksThe rationale - -the very necessity--for having centralized resources or banks ofobjectives, it'.:ms,cnd resources is a matter of time, energy, and money. Why this isso will be clear when one considers the contents of the banks.The objectives in the SPPED banks are behavioral objectives. A behavioralobjective is .a precise statement of desired pupil behavior; it specifies the conditions,including the type of material, to which a student will be expo:ed, the response activityhe will perform under those conditions, and the proficiency he will attain.This is a behavioral objective:Given a short story such as "Stolen Day" bySherwood Anderson, the student will read thestory and list the chief characters and the mainevents of the story with 95 percent accuracyin .20 minutes.2

This specific statement can be contrasted with a more casual objective such as,"The student will demonstrate that he understood a short story he has read." The goalin both cases is understanding or comprehension. However, the behavioral objectiveguts at comprehension by having the student write down information gained from hisreading. It puts understanding on a measureable basis and, in fact, provides a blueprintfor the writing of a test item.The test items derived from a behavioral objective provide the basis for a discrepancyanalysis, that is, a comparison of what one hoped would result from instruction and whatwas actually accomplished. A behavioral objective then is a means of focusing onjust what it is one intends to achieve in the process of education.Writing a behavioral objective is time-consuming as anyone who has tried hishand at it well knows. A bank of objectives, a centralized resource from which to makeselections, is a time-saving device. In using a bank, a school district can gain theadvantages of defining its curriculum in terms of what it wants its students to be able todo without having to put effort and money into writing objectives from scratch. Additionaltime and effort can be saved by having,as a centralized resource, pools of test itemsmatched to objectives and a collection of references to instructional materials alsomatched to objectives. Finally, the time-saving assets of the SPPED banks will beenhanced by their availability through a computer. When stored in a :omputer, thecontents of the banks can be quickly accessed according to the special 'interests andneeds of the user.The existence of a bank does not impose objectives on a school district any morethan it would dictate certain types of testing or recommended certain instructionalmaterials.The reading bank, for example, is not a program of reading instruction,3

nor does it advocate any particular approach to reading. The users must make all thedecisions about what to teach, what they will evaluate, and what materials they willemploy. Furthermore, the user can and should modify the contents of a bank to fit hislocal situation. Thus local banks,which are the means of organizing objectives, items,and resourcesfor storage and use, will reflect local needs.The Development of the SPPED Reading ObjectivesConcern over the extent of failure in reading and with reading instruction, madereading a priority subject matter area for a SPPED bank.The development of the reading bank began with a survey of existing collectionsof reading objectives. Thic rgview resulted in the definition of a set of standards forthe bank of reading objectives and the selection of a framework or classificationstructure for reading objectives.The standards established for the bank were these:I.It should be comprehensive, covering a variety of approachesto the teaching of reading and as many as possible of thebehaviors used to define reading in the school setting.2. Its component objectives should be behaviorally specific,but should take into account the infinite variety of contentthat can be used in reading objectives.3. It should be parsimonious both in the wording of theobjectives and in the avoidance of redundancy or theunnecessary repetition of objectives.To meet these standards, two new types of objectives were created. One, thegeneric olo!%.:-.1ve (GO), states the type of stimulus material to be given and specifiesthe student rs.sponse. The other, a criterion objective (CO), sets a standard of performance on a number of related generic objective's. The generic and criterion objectives4

are discussed in detail in chapters 2 and 3.The framework selected for the reading bank was an early classification system orcategory structure for SOBE-R, a System for Objectives-Based Evaluation in Readingdeveloped at the Center for the Study of Evaluation, UCLA. 1SOBE-R met the stand-ard for inclusiveness and provided some 800 objectives which could be used as a startingpoint for the writing of SPPED objectives. A second source of objectives that weremodified to fit the SPPED standards was the Catalogue of instructional Objectives and2Prescriphons for High intensity Learning Systems.The SOBE-R and the High Intensity objectives were based on extensive analysesof existing reading curriculums and instructional materials. The nature of these sourcesin one sense defined the term "reading" for the SPPED bank. Whatever other definitionsit may have, reading in the SPPED bank means those activities which educators,curriculum designers, and the authors of instructional materials call "reading" in theelementary and secondary school. In other words, the "reading" objectives describe"reading" behaviors expected of children in the school context.Over 2200 generic objectives were derived from the two sources cited. Carefulediting and the use of a computer program to eliminate redundancies 3 resulted in a final1A draft of the SOBE-R User's Guide and Qbjectives was made available to theState Education Department in October 1971 by Rodney W. Skager, project director.SOBF -R is now known as SOBA-R, a System for Objectives-Based Assessment in Reading.2 So Alan Cohen and Anne Marie Mueser, Catalogue of Instructional Ob'ectivesand Prescriptions(New York: Random House,1971).3SCAN, a System for Coding Analysis developed by S. Alan Cohen and RobertP. O'Reilly, can be used to eliminate duplication, to insure the behavioral specificityof objectives, and to refine and update the bank. For technical information write theBureau of School and Cultural Research, New/ York State Education Department.5

collection of 1829 generic reading objectives. These generic objectives were clusteredinto a collection of 301 criterion objectives which were assigned to levels or stages ofreading development.The two collections, the generic and the criterion objectives/make up the currentcontent of the SPPED Reading Bank. A third element, a collection of lists of stimulusmaterials or content elements to be used in generic objectives, will be added shortly.The writing of test items and the identification of instructional resources are both projectsfor the future. While the Reading BOIR is thus incomplete, the objectives are animmediate resource for use in curriculum development and by their nature providesolid base for both the preparation of evaluation measures and for the assessment, orselection, of instructional materials and activities.The SPPED readingobjectives are now available in two paper documents: SPPEDResource 5000, Generic Objectives for the Bank of Objectives, Items and Resources inReading, and SPPF.D Resource 5001, Criterion Objectives for the Bank of Objectives,IITTLELL Resources in Reading. Both collections, along with the lists of elements, willsoon be available by computer. While much of the information presented here wiii bepertinent lo the use of a computerized bank, this manual is written with the currentlyavailable paper materials in mind.Levels in the SPPED Reading BankMention was made in the preceding section of the assignment of criterion objectivesto levels or stages of reading development. The concept of levels as used in the bankis an important one, for not only is it a means of organizing objectives, but it alsoreflects a philosophy about learning to read.6

That philosophy is that learning to read is an ongoing developmental process throughwhich individuals may proceed in different ways and at different rates.The best representation of the process of learning to read would be a series ofcontinuums than suggest these diversities. In teaching a child to read, the criricalmatter is to determine or diagnose his progress in ihe continuum and then to prescribeactivities and materials that will bring him to the next level of development. Somedemarcation of the continuum is needed to indicate progress.For the reading bank, six revels are suggested and defined in terms of developmental stages.These are:1. Readiness and Early Learning Stage2. Intermediate Learning Stage3. Advanced Learning Stage4o Early Application Stage5. Intermediate Application Stage6. Advanced Application StageThe three learning stages, levels 1 through 3, are those usually covered by theelementary school program, i.e., the first seven years of schooling (K-6). The threeapplication stages, levels 4 through 6, are the equivalent of the secondary school whererending is used in the study of increasingly difficult subject matter.The corollary to the concept of developmental levels in reading is the notion ofthe level of difficulty of reading materials. The beginning reader is given the simplestof reading materials while the most advanced reader,student who is applying hisreading skills in academic study, will have more complex or "difficult" material.Content or reading materials must be rated in terms of the levek for which they areappropriate.7

Summary and Recommendations forUse of the ManualIn this chapter, we have introduced the bank of reading objectives and describedits development as a part of Project SPRED. In the course of this presentation, threebasic concepts of the reading bank have been given: the notion of a behavioral objeciivewith its specification of conditions and standards for a particular student performance,the ides of a bank to be used creatively for local development activities and as a meansof organizing the local curriculum, and the perception of levels as a stratification ofa developmental reading continuum. With these concepts as a framework, we will nowturn to a detailed examination of the contents of the reading bank and its uses.Having been introduced to the bank, users may w;sh to vary the order in whichthey read the remaining chapters. Familiarity with the information on the generic andcriterion objectives' given In chapters 2 and 3 will be needed by everyone. The procedures for selecting objectives to develop curriculum and relating objectives toinstruction presented in chapters 4 and 5 will probably be of greatest interest tocurriculum coordinators, reading specialists, and teachers of reading. The discussionof evaluation in chapter 6 will likely be of most interest to those responsible for thedesign of evaluation, testing, and measurement.All six chapters of the manual should be read at some time by all persons workingin or with an objectives-based reading program in order that they may have a sense ofthe interrelatedness of curriculum, instruction, and evaluation. However, the manualis not a document to be read at one sitting and set aside. Rather it should be used as areference and consulted as need arises. The table of contents ,which notes the subdivisionsand topics within each chapter should facilitate the use of the manual in this way.

In using the manual, one should of course, have access to SPPED Resource 6000,the Generic Objectives, and SPPED Resource 5001, the Criterion Objectives. Inaddition, users may want to have avaik.ble some of the SFPED publications and trainingmaterials listed in Appendix A. Familiarity with these materials, which describeProject SPPED and its applications at length, will add to the overall utility of thereading objectives.9

CHAPTER 2GENERIC OBJECTIVESThe bank of reading objectives was planned as a comprehensive resource,capable of encompassing all different approaches to the teaching of reading. At thesame time, it was recognized that it would be impossible to include every possibleobjective because of the infinite variety of reading material available. This dilemmaproduced the generic objective or GO.The Generic Objective DefinedThe generic objective is a behavioral objective which is both specific andgeneral. It is specific in that it describes the type of stimulus to be given, states howit will be presented, and limits the student response to a particular behavior. It isgeneral in that it does not cite the specific stimulus material or content to be used.The following is an example of c generic objective:Example hGE neric ObjectiveGiven orally a plural word, the student writes itssingular larm.In example 1, the type of stimulus is stated (a plural word), and the studentresponse is specified (the student writes its singular form). However, no specific wordis cited; any plural word could be used.The structure of the generic objective, its style, and certain conventions usedin writing GO's will be discussed later in this chapter.10First, the relationship between

generic objectives and instructional objectives will be explained.Generic Objectives (GO's) andInstructional Objectives (10's)A generic objectr:e to which specific content materials or elements have beenadded is an instructional objective (JO). A generic objective is then a skeleton of aninstruction& objective. Example 2, below, is a generic objective; example 3, below,is an instructional objective, derived from the generic objective.Example 2:Generic Objective,Given orally two words, the student says if the finalconsonant sounds are the same or different.Example 3:Instructional ObjectiveGiven orally the words fat and sit, the student says ifthe final consonant sounds are the same or different.The content elements that can be added to the generic objectives includespecific letters, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, pictures, or selections. Byvarying the difficulty of the content element, a single generic objective can becomean instructional objective at a number of levels. Consider example 4, below.Example 4:Generic ObjectiveGiven a selection and given a question about a detailin the selection, the student designates the answer.11

Example 4 is a generic objective which can be transformed into a specificinstructional objective at any level by the addition of material (selections andquestions) of appropriate difficulty. For a beginning reader, the selection might betaken from a primer; for a high school senior, the selection might be taken from a bookby Herman Hesse. While some generic objectives such as example 4 could be madeappropriate for any level pf reading development, other objectives, such as example 2which dealt with letter soi.nds, might be appropriate only for beginning readers.The number of :nstructional objectives to be generated from a genericobjective may be limited by the type of material specified. Where the stimulus is aletter of the alphabet, there are only 26 possible elements. With other types ofmaterial such as passages of fiction or sentences,the possibilities are almost infinite.It would not be necessary, of course, to write out every objective derived from ageneric objective. Once one had determined the level or levels of the curriculum atwhich the objective was pertinent, one could simply draw up lists of content elementsof appropriate difficulty and attach them or cross- reference them to the generic form ofthe objective.The reading bank is to provide lists of elements from which a curriculumdesigner may choose specific content to add to generic objectives to transform them intoinstructionalctives. These lists of elements will be available in the near future asSPPED Resource 5002. The lists will be arranged by topics such as "final consonants"or "compound words." For each topic, there will be different types of lists--lists ofwords, sentences, selections, pictures, or whatever content would be required by theobjectives. The lists will be cross-referenced to the generic objectives, and theelements will be arranged by difficulty as indicated by the developmental levels12

described in chapter 1Table 201 shows the topics for which content lists will be available.Table 2.1Topics Covered byLists of Elements forGeneric ObjectivesAntonymsInitial ConsonantsLogical RelationshipsClassification!Ain IdeasCompound GrammaticalMedial Consonant DigraphsMedial ConsonantsAdjectivesElementsCompound onsPropaganda and PersuasionRhyming WordsContractionsDictionEmotionsEtymologyFables and MoralsFact and FantasyFigurative LanguageFinal ConsonantDigraphsFinal ConsonantsHeteronymsRootsSequenceSingular and PluralSkimming and OutliningSuffixesSyllablesSynonymsHomonymsSymbols and ObjectsInitial

2.1 The Structure of a Generic Objective 14 2.2 A Portion of the Skill Category Structure for Generic Objectives 24 2.3 A Generic Objective and the Skill Category Structure 25 2.4 Format for a Generic Objective 27 3.1 A Criterion Objective Descriptor w